


And I'll Bury My Soul in a Scrapbook

by Jedi1514



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 14:12:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jedi1514/pseuds/Jedi1514
Summary: For as long as Viktor could remember his mother was obsessed with scrapbooks.





	

_["And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, With the photographs there and the moths."](https://www.scrapbook.com/quotes/doc/12844/149.html) _

 

 

For as long as Viktor could remember his mother was obsessed with scrapbooks. Their small apartment in St. Petersburg was full to bursting with them. They took up every bit of space Viktor and his mother did not.

            By the time Viktor was born there were already two full books dedicated to him. By the time he was one there were another three. At age seven Viktor had over twenty scrapbooks about just him and his accomplishments. And he knew every picture and every quote in them.

            In fact, he knew every picture and every quote in every scrapbook in that tiny apartment in St. Petersburg. Every night, he would grab one of the scrapbooks from the wobbly table, or the couch, or the bookcase, or from on stop of the small TV, or the stack teetering precariously on his mother’s nightstand, and he would climb up onto his mother’s lap. He would settle there even though her legs were stick thin and bony, always digging in uncomfortably no matter how he sat. Even though she was perpetually cold and always shivering. He would climb up onto her lap, and watch as she went through the scrapbook, enjoying how bright her eyes got, how happy she looked.

            At age eight Viktor’s mother decided he was old enough to help with the scrapbooks. Viktor had long since become accustomed to the constant flashes of his mother’s old polaroid camera, her eyes lighting up briefly in harmony with the bright light. But for the first time she bundled him up in his thick winter coat, took his hand, and led him down the street and into the small craft store.

            In the store there were rows upon rows of paper, and ribbons, and stickers, and borders, and everything that any scrapbook could ever need. To tiny Viktor the aisles seemed giant and endless, but more amazing than that was the way his mother acted.

            Viktor learned to ask to go to the craft store. For paper, for stickers, for whatever excuse worked so he could watch his mother light up and dart around the store like she was the eight-year-old.

            About two months later Viktor was on his mother’s bony lap, watching her go through a scrapbook dedicated to his grandparents that he never got to meet, when he happened to glance down at the page. On it was a picture of his grandparents from their first and only trip to Moscow. In it, his grandmother, the woman everyone said he was a spitting image of, had her head tossed back, and was laughing in joy as his grandfather led her across an ice rink.

            Viktor stared at the picture until his mother turned the page. The next day he took the scrapbook back out and traced his grandmother’s outline. Every day for the next week he took out the scrapbook and stared at the picture.

            The next Monday Viktor asked to go to the craft store. There, fingering a pack of stickers with skates and ice rinks and gold medals he asked his mother if they could go skating. His mother paused where she had been gathering up new scrapbooks and Viktor could see her thinking, her brow furrowing and nose scrunching up.

            The next week there was a new scrapbook with his name on the front cover in glittering silver letters, bordered by golden skates.

            For the next year Viktor was happy to spend his days skating, and his mother was happy to spend her days documenting it. Then at age nine Viktor watched as a strange writing slowly, stroke by stroke, appeared on the back of his hand. Confused, he went to show his mother where she was hunched over a scrapbook at the sole table in the tiny apartment. He hadn’t been expecting her reaction.

            As soon as she saw the writing she darted over to the cabinet where she kept the empty scrapbooks, knocking over her chair in her haste. Reaching up on her tiptoes, she pulled out a scrapbook stored at the very top of the cabinet, only just within her reach. It was wrapped in tissue paper, and he watched as she carefully peeled it back to reveal a pristine white cover, edged in delicate lace with his name embroidered in delicate gold thread in the center, but with an obvious space beneath it. Opening, she reached out and placed his hand directly next to the blank page. Then, with her highest quality calligraphy pen, she carefully copied down the words on his hand.

            Later that night, instead of waiting for him pick one out, she unlocked the drawer of her bedside table with trembling hands and pulled out a scrapbook with yellowing pages.

            He tried his best to act appropriately shocked at its existence, to pretend he hadn’t seen his mother crying over it late at night when she thought he was asleep. But that night she gathered him up onto her lap and showed him the words traced onto the pages.

            Unlike the words that had appeared on him, these were in Cyrillic, and Viktor could identify them as nonsensical little notes; grocery lists, homework reminders, and phone numbers that gave way to small love notes addressed to his mother. To Alyona.

            Towards the end of the scrapbook the words gave way to photographs, all featuring a tall blonde man with prominent laugh lines around his blue eyes. The last picture in the scrapbook was of the man holding a baby, swaddled completely to the point that all that could be seen was a small tuft of silver hair. Clumsily pasted to the back cover was a newspaper clipping featuring two pictures; the smoked out remains of a wrecked car and the man’s portrait. It’s faded and stained with tear marks and Viktor knows without a doubt that this is his father, the man his mother never talks about.

               His mother goes on to explain how anything his soulmate writes on their own skin will appear on his. He glances down at his own hand where the words had appeared, long gone but commemorated in his mother’s scrapbooks. Questioningly he traces the words on his mother’s wrist, ones he had assumed were a tattoo. _я люблю тебя_ _._ She follows his gaze and abruptly announces its past his bedtime.

              The next day he asks his teacher what happens when your soulmate dies. His usually cheerful teacher goes somber, and crouches down to his level.  

             “Now why on earth would you want to know that Viktor?” He stares at her until she sighs.

              “When your soulmate dies, anything on you at the time just…. stays.” Then she calls the class to order, ushering him to his seat. During class he can’t help but notice his classmates scribbling on their own hands and for the first time he joins them. He’s disappointed that he doesn’t get a response right away, but he’s determined to meet his soulmate.

              After skating practice he runs to the library, his mother hurrying after him. Wordlessly he shoves a scrap of paper with his soulmate’s words messily copied onto it into the librarian’s hands while his mother breathlessly tries to apologize for him. Nevertheless, with her help he leaves with a large book on the Japanese language.

              For the next few months the white scrapbook with the delicate lace stays empty apart from the first two pages, and his obsession with learning Japanese fades as he realizes how much time studying takes away from skating. Instead he starts drawing his routines on his arms.

              Viktor inherits his mother’s obsession with soulmates and she inherits his fascination with skating. She comes to all his practices and all his competitions, taking time off work to travel with him. She even replaces her old polaroid camera with a new digital one. At age twelve Viktor scrimps and saves and with a little help from Yakov gathers enough money to buy his mother a special lens for shooting action shots. All of it is worth it to see her absolutely glow as they run out the rink to test it. She starts providing photos for the rink’s website, and before every major competition she goes to the little craft store and buys giant versions of the scrapbook paper they keep at home to make banners for the competitors.

              Just after his fifteenth birthday small drawings of what Yakov identifies as basic figures begin to appear in response to his skating doodles. Viktor is absolutely delighted, running off the ice in the middle of practice, ignoring Yakov’s shouting, to show his mother. They deduce that his soulmate must be a skater, ignoring Yakov’s protests that they could just be a fan. Nevertheless, Yakov approves of his soulmate, maintaining that any skater dedicated enough to draw figures must be far more detailed and artistic than Viktor himself. His mother, for that matter, also approves, finding that the drawings are much easier to copy than the kanji.

              Viktor is eighteen when years of depression, of not taking proper care of herself, and of not eating properly catches up with his mother. Viktor has long since moved them into a large apartment with plenty of book cases, but it feels suffocating in the wake of her illness. At night, she can no longer support the heavy scrapbooks she loves, so he lays beside her and holds them instead. He wants to skip the rest of the season to stay in St. Petersburg to take care of her, but she refuses, going as far as to call Yakov and demand that he drags Viktor to the rink if necessary. As winter continues he hires a nurse to come during the day while he’s at practice to help her, but he can see in his mother’s eyes that she is lonely.

              He goes to a shelter and finds the sweetest puppy there, and his mother coos in delight when he presents her with the small poodle. She demands he grab her camera and a new scrapbook, and together they spell out Makkachin onto the cover as the puppy herself nestles her way into his mother’s side.

              The week before the world championships he decides he needs a change, and darts into the bathroom to grab the shears his mother always used to cut his hair. He can feel her hands shaking as she grasps the long silky strands, and they both laugh as Makkachin tries to play with the hair pooling on the bed.

               The longest intact lock they can fish out of the pile is the last thing his mother ever puts into a scrapbook.

              Viktor barely keeps it together during worlds, dedicating his performances to his mother during the day and locking himself in his room at night to cry. As soon as they get back they hold her funeral, his rink mates and their families and Yakov and the old lady that owns the little craft shop coming to say their goodbyes. It’s a gorgeous day as they lower her into the ground next to an unfamiliar grave. One his mother had always been too distraught over to take him to. He wishes it was raining to hide how many tears roll down his face during the ceremony.

              Afterwards he goes to rent a storage locker, still in his suit with tear track staining his face, and Yakov helps him moves all his mother’s scrapbooks into it. The only two he keeps at his apartment are an old one with yellowed pages, and a pristine white one edged with delicate lace, still with an empty space beneath his name on the cover. He locks both into the drawer of his bedside table.

               He throws himself into skating, winning competition after competition, the camera flashes familiar and his smile automatic. The drawings on his hand progress from increasingly complicated figures to full on routines, lists of jumps and spins spelled out in both Japanese and English down his arm. From the difficulty levels, he decides his soulmate must be a competitive skater, and starts drawing basic figures on the back of his hand before every competition. Yakov tries to get him to stop, arguing that all it will do is encourage people to fake the marks and claim he’s their soulmate, but can only convince Viktor to wear gloves during his performances. Year after year passes and no skater with figures on the backs of their hands emerges, but it becomes part of his ritual.

               By the time Viktor is twenty-seven he feels numb. He goes through the Grand Prix Final that year feeling like he’s under water. Then Yuuri Katsuki forcibly grabs him and yanks him out. Dancing with the drunken Japanese boy Viktor is the happiest he’s been since his mother died. And then he catches sight of the figures on Yuuri’s hands and falls head over heels in love. When Yuuri’s coach comes to collect him at the end of the night Viktor frantically grabs at his hand, scribbling down his number with a waiter’s pen and watching the numbers appear on his own hand.

               He stares at his hand all night until the writing disappears in the morning. He greets Yakov at breakfast with red, tired eyes and the realest smile he’s had in years. When he gets back to St. Petersburg he goes straight to his mother’s grave with the bouquet he was given at the medal ceremony and pictures of his and his teammates from the competition, as per tradition. But this time he’s printed out pictures of Yuuri, and he immediately settles himself on the grass by her headstone, settles the flowers into the vase next to it, and tells her about his wonderful soulmate.

               After Chris sends him the video he returns to her grave, a screenshot from the video printed out to add to the ever-growing pile of photographs in a special holder next to her headstone. He sits there on the grass until the groundskeeper tells him he must leave, and by then he’s booked the flight to Japan.

               When Viktor is twenty-nine he reopens the storage locker with his mother’s scrapbooks in it. He and Yuuri are a week away from their wedding, and while Yuuri has seen photos of her and visited her grave, Viktor has never shown his mother’s pride and joy to anyone but Yakov, and he’s inexplicably nervous.

              Yuuri blinks in shock as the door opens, revealing stacks upon stacks of dusty scrapbooks, and Viktor reflects that, “My mother really liked scrapbooks” was probably not strong enough to convey the volume to which that was the truth. But Yuuri overcomes his shock quickly and heads in to start dusting off the covers, remarking how talented his mother was. They spend all night there with his mother’s scrapbooks, sitting on the floor of the locker, Yuuri cuddled into his side, eating pirozhkis from a nearby stall and going through the scrapbooks.

               The last books he shows Yuuri are the ones in his bedside table. The next day they wake up early and take the bus across town to Viktor’s old neighborhood, the scrapbook safely tucked into Yuuri’s backpack. The old lady at the craft store welcomes them with a wide smile, and bustles into the back to gather up hot chocolate for them. Yuuri points at one of the pictures hung up behind the register, and Viktor smiles when he sees it’s of him and his mother, each of them carrying a basket overflowing with supplies. The old lady almost cries when she sees the scrapbook, reminiscing about when she and Viktor’s mother had specially ordered it from one of the catalogs she kept up front. She waves them out to get lunch and when they return Yuuri’s name in kanji is embroidered in delicate gold thread in the center of the front cover, just below Viktor’s.

               That night they lay in bed with Makkachin at their feet, flipping through the book and selecting photographs from Viktor’s phone to add to the blank pages.

               “I feel guilty. I should’ve kept making these books. That’s what she would’ve wanted.”

               Yuuri closes the book and looks thoughtful for a moment.

               “I think you did though”. Viktor looks at him curiously.

               Yuuri fiddles with his phone for a moment, and when he shows it to Viktor his Instagram page is pulled up. Yuuri starts to scroll through the pictures, occasionally pausing on ones from important events. The last world championships, Yakov’s retirement party, Yuri’s most recent birthday, their hands crossed, engagement rings prominently displayed.

               “It may not be on paper, but you’ve recorded everything right here.”

               Viktor crushes Yuuri to his chest in response, and Yuuri can feel his tears seeping into the shoulder of his night shirt.

               “I’m so glad I found you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for Yuri!! On Ice, and it pretty much poured out of me during my lsat prep course. I guess that's where my priorities lie. Thank you so so so so much for reading this.


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